Bells Bring The End of War

by Lamasioux

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Equestria at War, Alternate Universe, Sad, Romance, Original Character
Length: 10048

Bell finds himself in an ambush by a changeling during the occupation of a changeling hive.

Bell Flank finds himself in a ambush by a changeling during the Great War and finds himself with a near-death experience. After sustaining multiple injuries from the incident, he gets an early exit from the war and finally gets to go home where he can get the well deserved hug he's been wanting from his family.

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This story takes place in the Equestria at War universe which is a universe for a Hearts of Iron 4 mod. The FiMFiction group for the universe can be found here.

Published 2022-11-05 08:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-11-10 19:57:45 UTC

Chapter 1

It was just supposed to be a quick look in the building, go in and check on what those changelings were doing and see if it was something of importance, but of course when the changelings never came out to greet them with the usual weariness that was emitted from the local populace, they decided to enter.

Thankfully the door of the building was slightly open, which only called for the ponies that were waiting outside to open it and enter. Nothing ever happened when opening doors though, not for that one.

During the time the ponies had occupied the hive town, traps became a rumor and myth. They were lucky.

Other hives weren’t so kind to their occupiers.

The only thing that awaited them was an empty room when they opened the door, which only further cemented the interest of the ponies.

One hoof stepped inside, followed by three more. They stood still just inside the doorway before shuffling around and the pony they belonged to said, “There’s nothing?”

Another set of hooves entered through the door, only followed by a second.

The first pony that entered, went further into the building and kicked a few of the objects inside to see if anything would somehow expose a secret they couldn’t see. Nothing would happen. It was just abandoned and empty.

“But I swear I saw some sketchy looking ones enter here.” One of the ponies said.

“Check the back then, there’s probably a door that exists.”

While one of the ponies went further into the room to check for any exit, two remained in the front and mulled around for a moment as they lazily looked around at what littered the room.

There was nothing of real interest though, just some changeling decor and furniture. At least there wasn’t anything of interest until one of the ponies yelled out, “BELL!”

Bell turned their attention away from the lamp he was admiring to find out what was so important for his name to be yelled out and saw the other pony in the room horrified as they were looking down.

The pony quickly kicked an object that was near their feet towards the door they came in from and yelled, “BOMB!”

The sliding object that the pony had kicked was caught by Bell’s vision and as the object came to a halt, he realized what he was looking at, a grenade.

Bell panicked for a moment until he realized the only thing he could do was quickly engulf the grenade in his telekinesis magic and try to send the object back out through the open door. Without spending anymore time dwelling on the action, he did as he thought.

He cast the telekinesis spell and wrapped the grenade with his magic lifted it up and quickly sent it flying.

The grenade never made it to the door though as it quickly fell down to the ground, just as it had when it was thrown into the room, along with Bell himself.

Bell now sat on the ground as his horn raged with pain and intense screaming, which just happened to be what he himself was also doing.

The other pony didn’t waste any time and quickly ran towards the grenade in desperation to send it back out the door themselves but failed to do so as a explosion materialized from the grenade and radiated throughout the room.

Bell was then met with the immediate vibration of the explosion atop the searing pain he felt in his horn and for a short moment, whatever pain he was experiencing seemed to disappear until everything went to nothing.

If you had been able to keep track of time during that short moment of nothing, then that nothingness would’ve felt like a bad dream where the passing of time seems to not be accounted for which results in anything you experience feeling like it takes a infinite amount of time.

Thankfully for Bell, he wasn’t able to process anything. The nothingness that he experienced was more of the feeling of having a dreamless sleep where you wake up all of a sudden not remembering the hours you had just spent asleep.

All of a sudden though, that nothingness was interrupted with the shimmers of light that suddenly burst into existence. They weren’t anything that could be recognized though. There was no specific shapes, figures, or forms that could be made out of the light as the shimmers only lasted for moments at a time. There would be an occasional break between the shimmers of light happening, but they kept coming back.

Not even sounds were able to be recognized as they also came and went. When the first shimmer of light appeared, the only thing recognizable was the grenade, but everything else had been jumbled together. It was mixed sounds and noises that could only be passed off as white noise.

At some point the shimmering of light finally stopped appearing as they did, but they had only been replaced by the shimmers of darkness. Before, there was only nothing and the shimmers, but now, it was nothing and darkness. Darkness had finally taken over, but at least compared to nothing, it was something more than anything.

Eventually the noises of jumbled sounds became the first thing that were understandable. Whenever the noises came back, there was always a constant ringing sound that accompanied everything else. Sometimes there was nothing but the ringing, other times the rumbling sound of a car. Or was that the feeling of a car? But then there would be nothing, and eventually whatever car related sounds were gone, replaced with quietness.

It was obvious it was quietness, as there was that distinct nothing that accompanies it, unlike actual nothing. It was a relaxing kind of quietness though. Nothing about it brought stress, only calmness.

At least it would be if there wasn’t that constant ringing sound.

The switches between nothing and the something that was the only thing that brought calmness. At least with the nothing, Bell didn’t have to worry about the ringing.

Or at least he didn’t have to when it finally stopped altogether.

Now that the ringing sound had dissipated, it was just the nothingness and the quietness, which was finally being broken up by the ambient sounds of hoofs occasionally moving and the sounds of voices.

And then it happened. The shimmers of light came back, but this time it wouldn’t leave. It only got brighter and brighter until it eventually overpowered everything that existed, before it started to slowly dissipate into nothing again.

Or what Bell thought was nothing.

As the overpowering light faded away, it left behind in its wake a ceiling.

It was an interesting ceiling though, it was littered with holes that were covered with something, not covered from below where he could see them, but from above.

There were also a few lights that hung from the ceiling that emitted light that hurt to look at directly.

It was when Bell’s eyes squinted shut from the brightness that everything hit him at once.

The first thing Bell noticed was the headache that was burning him. It radiated throughout his entire head but also went down through his neck and spine. It was possible to tell individually on his body where it was hurting but it also seemed to be the same pain. If felt as if the pain were to be removed like a puzzle piece in a puzzle, it’d all just be one piece.

Then came the pins and needles he felt in his hind leg. They poked and pricked at it the entirety of his right hind leg, which was impossible to feel past the pins and needles. It felt more like the pins and needles had replaced the leg entirely.

Everything else was numb. He couldn’t really feel where one side of his body was and where it ended. He felt his mind tell himself to move a hoof, but nothing happened, at least he couldn’t feel anything happen. His mind told him that something moved, but nothing registered as moving.

It didn’t help that the headache was taking up nearly all of his thinking power. It seemed that thinking only made the pain worse. Thankfully his eyes were closed so he didn’t have to think about how much pain looking would cause him now.

So with the only option he had, he shut his brain off and did his best to do nothing.

Eventually, everything just started to fuzz away, his hearing, the pain, even what remained of his thoughts.

It was all replaced with layers and layers of invisible spider webs that made up his existence himself. Even though the spider webs spread out in all directions, he was at the center of it all, falling.

He passed through the layers of webs that spread out in all directions and angles, falling at a constant, but slow pace through them all, all while the webs moved in the opposite direction he did.

The spider webs were still a part of himself though and he felt as if at a near infinite distance away did they finally disappear, only to be replaced by another somewhere below him, which was hard to tell despite being the webs themselves as well.

He felt himself looking up as he fell, but he felt his body turn and spin around below himself as it condensed into a ball. It was weird to feel as this happened, while simultaneously feeling himself spread out in the webs.

For a moment, it felt like he would be nauseous from everything going on, but that was replaced with the sudden emergence of the headache he had been feeling from before, though the ball that his body had turned into didn’t feel it, it was the layers of spider webs that continued to pass by that felt the headache.

It was as if the headache he was feeling was being experienced by creatures around him in a crowd, that he himself was being affected by without being the one with the actual headache.

But he couldn’t figure out whether he was the one having it or not as the ball form he was in was hit by a sudden layer of water.

He wasn’t a smooth ball but a rough one, and one that felt like it was covered in cloth as he could now only feel the water stick to himself and leave a dampness that surrounded his ball form.

The dampness then slowly began to spread to the spider webs. Bell felt as every strand of the spider webs began to slowly have water form around them through the invisible pores that emitted them.

Every strand of every spider web had millions of pores on them, each one nonexistent but still there, being the origin of the layer of water that formed on the webs, and Bell could feel as the water seeped out.

Very quickly though, Bell could feel as the strands started to become overbearing with water and could feel the weight of all the water put pressure on the headache the webs had.

And then streams and drips of water began to fall off the webs, but they didn’t fall down. They went up. In the same direction as the webs went, but faster.

Slowly as every web became oversaturated with water, each one began to lose it’s hoard of water. But that didn’t bring an end to the pressure.

Each time a drop or stream of water left the webs, it ripped a part of Bell’s mind with it, taking with it not only himself, but the headache.

Bell could feel as the webs began to eventually shed the water that clung to it.

It didn’t stop though. The complexity of the layers upon layers of spider webs that were everywhere were in the way of all the rising water. Each web, still covered and soaked in water, was being hit by the rising water, where Bell’s mind and headache’s would merge into the webs above, before ripping themselves off again, only to hit yet another web above.

Then it ended and his eyes opened.

He felt like throwing up as everything he just experienced condensed back into his body. The headache in his head and spine, the pins and needles, the numbness, it was all back, but this time, it was accompanied by the dampness.

Everything he could feel was damp.

The ceiling wasn’t above him this time though, instead it was replaced by a mare that stared at him from a bed that was next to him.

Bell stared back at them until the mare said, “What’s with that face? You were just dreaming.”

Chapter 2

Bell looked around, straining to keep his eyes open and saw other beds with more ponies all lying in them.

He was in a row of seven beds, most were occupied by a pony as well, but there was an empty bed near the end. On the other side of the room was another row of seven beds, which all had ponies lying on them. A few were talking, one was reading a book and the rest were laying down, presumably resting.

There was one entrance to the room, the door had a window on it, but it was covered by a piece of cloth, and then on the other end of the row of beds were windows that let in a bunch of sunlight, which helped light up one half of the room. The other half, which Bell was on, was mostly lit up by the lights inside the room. Bell couldn’t see what was out of the windows though as the light coming in was too bright for his eyes.

At the entrance of the room though, there was a pony that sat in a chair reading a book, off to the side from the door. They didn’t look like there was anything wrong with them, at least by the fact they were in a chair and not a bed. After a moment though, their attention was quickly obtained by some of the ponies that were closest to him.

Bell’s attention was brought back to the mare that had spoken just a moment ago, also due to their hoof waving about as it tried to get his attention and they said, “It’s alright, it just sounded like a bad dream. You’re alright! It’s alright. You’re just in the hospital.”

Bell shuffled himself a little bit before realizing what a mistake that was as it drained all his energy to do so, so he melted into the bed before realizing there was a familiar problem that he had now just noticed. The bed he was laying in was damp.

The mare cleared their throat and gave off a nervous laugh and said with a fake reassurance, “You’re probably not alright though… But you are safe! Better than anything out there right now!”

Bell had a slow time thinking but he eventually came around to hearing himself mumble some sounds out of his mouth, “Iwhahata.”

He had trouble understanding himself, so he inflated his lungs and held his breath for a little while before he started to feel a fizzy sensation at the top of his lungs and exhaled. It had woken him up enough that he finally could say something coherently, so with some gathered strength he said in a quiet voice, but still mumbled voice, “I- I just need some water.”

After saying that, Bell took a deep breath and then melted once again into the bed as he awaited the response the mare would give him. If not for the damp bed, he would have fallen asleep right there.

“It’s right there on the table next to you.” The mare answered softly.

Bell didn’t notice if the mare motioned to a location as he spent all the strength he had to sit up straight and remember her answer. His goal was to get the water he so needed right then, but his body was obviously fighting back against the action of such movements.

But nevertheless, he powered through the urges to lay back down and looked to his left, seeing a table nearby that wasn’t close enough to reach with a hoof, and then looking to his right, towards the mare who had been speaking before noticing the table that was pushed up against the bed he was on. Atop of it was a glass bottle filled with a cork keeping it closed, completely full of water. Next to it was a small cup that looked like it was made of glass as well. It was upside down atop a napkin to help keep anything foreign from landing inside of it.

At the entrance of the room, the pony that had been sitting was now walking over, watching Bell as they approached. They tried to speak up to get Bell’s attention, but he was too focused on the bottles.

Now that Bell had found his desired target, he clenched his mouth shut and powered through the headache he had and engulfed the glass cup with his magic and lifted it up to flip it around so he could then pour water into it.

But that didn’t happen. The cup didn’t move at all.

He failed.

Badly.

The pony that had been walking over quickly made their way over now, but it was too late.

For Bell, it felt like had been stabbed in the head, which paralyzed him, seizing him up for a moment before his body caved into the moment and he fell over, back down onto the damp bed, and passed out.

Nothingness seemed like it was unavoidable. Anything and everything Bell did seemed to only be nothingness now. He couldn’t escape it. It kept coming back at every chance it had.

At least this time it was quick and he came to quickly. Only this time when he opened his eyes, he saw the pony from before standing over him, putting their hoof against him to make sure he was alright.

After a few seconds, Bell felt his head start to pop, it felt as if there were bubbles inside of it and each time one of them popped, his headache came back slowly, which only pounded away at him.

While that happened, Bell saw the pony before him moving their mouth, trying to speak to him, but he couldn’t make out anything they said until the last popping bubble popped and he blinked a few times, and simply gave them a smile and muttered, “How’s it going?”

The pony before him had reached up and placed a hoof over him, to try and keep him from moving. They had slight frown on their face as they looked at Bell, but it was a very somber frown. The pony eventually said, “Normally better when the patients don’t hurt themselves while they recover.”

Bell’s smile faded away after hearing the comment the pony made. His face relaxed though as he stared at the pony until he barely opened his mouth and asked through his lips, “Why am I here?”

The pony before Bell looked a bit confused at the question, but that confusion was justified when they leaned in a bit more and asked him, “Could you ask that again?”

“Why–” Bell got caught up in the moment as his mind went blank as it continued to adjust to the headache, “Here? Why am I here?”

The pony looked at Bell for a moment, before his eyes glanced up at Bell’s forehead and then back down at him, “Hmm…” He then looked at the desk where the glasses were and removed his hoof from Bell and reached down under the desk to a shelve that was below it and brought up some pieces of paper that had been hidden there.

Bell angled his head better so he could watch the pony before him, but while the pony read the paper, he heard some of the other patients in the room start to talk. His headache kept him from being able to hear specific words, but he could hear their voices vibrate from afar. They seemed to be almost as if they were underwater.

The pony with the paper finished looking at the page and then hoofed it over to Bell, and before any mistake could be made, he quickly brought it back to safety, away from the unicorn and said, “No magic.” He then brought the page back closer to Bell so he could take it for himself.

As that comment started to dwell on him for a moment, everything started to come together and Bell’s eyes slowly fell on the ponies before him. Before he could take the papers though, the pony said, “Your horn was shot off, more than half of it. You can’t use magic anymore.”

He had said that with a straight face, and a little bit of a louder voice, just so Bell was certain to have heard it.

The first thing Bell tried to do upon hearing that was try and reach for his forehead and touch it, but the pony quickly stopped him by holding his hoof down, “Don’t.” They didn’t say anything else and as they let go of Bell, the pony hoofed over the papers and then tried to give a reassuring smile.

Bell took the papers and looked at them for a moment as the pony said, “Just try to relax for now. You’re at a hospital in Acornage. This is a recovery ward for ponies.” He looked away now and then said in a softer voice, “Everypony in this room is being medically discharged from service.” After a short pause, he added, “Those papers will explain everything and more, plus your injuries and surgeries.”

Once the pony finished talking, a quiet sounding alarm went off and he began to walk away, leaving Bell on the bed.

Bell watched as they left but realized he was still thirsty, so with a in the moment decision, he quickly asked, “Can- The water first? Can you help me with that?”

A few of the other patients quietly watched Bell after his question, but none of them said anything.

The pony had halted and turned to look back at Bell, before he himself swallowed and came back over and quickly filled up the cup and brought it over to Bell and said, “Only because you probably shocked yourself into losing your strength from that magic. Only this time.” He motioned for Bell to sit up first before bringing the glass up to Bells’s mouth and helped him drink it.

To Bell, the sips of water were the most refreshing thing he had in a while. At least while it was in his mouth. When he swallowed it, the back of his throat felt numb as the water washed over it, it felt like the water had just brushed up against his headache.

But after a few sips, the pony took away the glass and set it on the table and said, “You’re not a cripple, but you can’t use magic anymore, so get used to your hooves.”

After that final comment, the pony quickly left, not only leaving Bell, but also heading out of the room that had every other pony.

Once the taste of water dissipated from Bell’s mouth, did he finally notice that there were quite a few ponies staring at him, all of whom quickly looked away and went back to their reading, or small chats with each other.

The mare that Bell saw when he first woke up was still staring at him, but he ignored her and quickly laid himself back down, not bothering to look at the papers he had been given.

A voice spoke up after a moment of peace that said, “That was Metal Master.”

Bell hadn’t closed his eyes so he turned his head in the direction the voice came from and noticed it was the mare. She stared back before breaking out in a smile and laughing quietly, “He’s just here in case we need anything from the doctors and nurses while they attend elsewhere. I didn’t expect him to actually help you with that water.”

Bell gave the mare a questionable look before the mare waved a hoof at him and said, “And I’m Golden Colt!” She said with enthusiasm, “Your bed neighbor. I hope we can get along until we’re sent home.”

Golden had a smile on her face while she waited for Bell to answer in some form, but he didn’t immediately. He just moved his head so he looked up at the ceiling again before closing his eyes finally, but before anything happened, whether he passed out or she was able to say anything, he answered, “Bell– Flank.”

Bell didn’t understand anything Golden said after that as he quickly fell asleep again. It had been tiring to have talked as much as he did, so after a while, whatever noise Golden was making stopped and he finally fell asleep. Not even the damp bed kept him awake.

This time though, there were no weird dreams or nothingness. Just normal, dreamless sleep.

Chapter 3

By Celestia’s wrath, would Bell be mad. His dreamless sleep was just interrupted.

It was the first proper rest he had gotten since everything happened. His otherworldly spider web experience had lingered at the back of his mind while he had been awake, plus the massive pain he had been in while awake as well, but at least somecreature watched over him during that sleep to allow him to rest. Maybe it had been Luna, or maybe he had just been lucky.

Speaking of his headache, it was the first thing he noticed that made him realize he was awake again. The next thing he noticed was his muzzle where it normally was, half his vision blocked by the sheets on the bed and the blaring light on the ceiling above.

The lights didn’t help him, as after slowly opening his one eye that wasn’t pressed into the bed, he would quickly shut it again and tried to push his face into the covers so they wrapped around his face and blocked out the light, but he was only interrupted again when he felt something poke against his side.

He took a deep breath in before relaxing his lungs before wiggling his head a bit to uncover his face from the sheets and lifted his head a bit so he could look around, to try and find whatever it was that was poking him.

The first place Bell looked at had unfortunately been the windows at the end of the room where light still came in, which shortly blinded him from his dilated pupils. It caused him to heavily squint his eyes and quickly look away as his eyes stung a bit from the brightness.

As his eyes slowly dilated again to the darker side of the room, the shape of a pony began to form, until finally, he saw them standing before him on the left side of the bed who then smiled at him, or frowned? Or was their mouth moving in a squiggly shape? He couldn’t tell as everything he saw was just blurry.

When he realized he couldn’t see them properly, he brought up a hoof and rubbed his eyes a bit.

While he rubbed his eyes, he heard his hearing pick up on the words, “-rry for waki– you, but – have lunch prepared now.”

Bell finally put his hoof back down and could finally see properly and noticed the pony before him again. Though the pony had turned away and made their way back to the center of the room where a cart was.

As Bell watched the mare, he realized that it wasn’t as draining to keep himself up as before. The biggest thing that kept trying to force him to lay down was his headache but even that was a bit better. Maybe sitting up helped more than laying down.

The mare finally returned to him after getting a tray from the cart and bringing it to Bell by carrying it in their mouth, and when they got back to him, the mare placed it on the side of his bed and said, “--told to make sure – wake you for lunch especially, they said you haven’t eat– in the day you’ve been here yet so h–ou go.”

Bell could finally see that the pony wasn’t Metal Master or Golden Colt, but a new pony, a mare.They wore a white cap on their head that looked like it wasn’t properly centered, while their body was covered in a white lab coat. At least it looked like a lab coat. He didn’t know the difference between clothing types.

The mare then spoke up and said, “The meal today is apple --am toast and a cucumber sandwich with a cup of black coff–.”

Bell looked down at the tray that held the mentioned meal and looked at it for a moment before looking up at the mare and processed what to say. He noticed that he had been having a somewhat hard time understanding her, so he wasn’t sure if he had missed something.

“Uhmm,” Bell looked around the tray before looking back up at the mare, “What about water?”

The mare held back a small smile before pointing past him with a hoof at the table that was next to him, where his glass of water still remained. It was still just as full as it had been when it was poured.

Bell followed her hoof and then noticed the glass said, “Oh.” before turning to look back at the mare. He dipped his head a bit at the embarrassment of the question now but smiled while he gazed at the tray of food and said, “Thanks.”

The mare nodded their head in reply before turning around to leave. As she left, he noticed that the pony in the bed to his left was also eating. The mare had distracted him from noticing. Before that pony caught his gaze, Bell quickly looked around at the rest of the ponies in the room and saw half of them had their meals, while the other half didn’t. One of the ponies on the other row was still asleep, but their tray of food was placed atop the table that was beside their bed.

Bell then looked to his right and saw that Golden didn’t have a tray of food themselves, but the mare that had given him his food quickly trotted up to her with another tray in their mouth and mouthed it over to Golden, who gladly accepted it.

Bell’s attention was quickly caught off guard though when the pony to his left spoke up and said with a muffled voice, “--eat the food now if I were you. The toast is best while the coffee’s – hot.”

Bell looked at the pony now and looked them over for a second before he turned to look at the tray on his bed and saw that the coffee was indeed steaming from its temperature, but for a moment, he questioned why he would eat the toast with coffee, but before he could go further into that thought, the same pony spoke up, “Everypony h– thinks I’m weird for liking toast and coffee, but you– see.”

Bell couldn’t tell if the headache was messing with his hearing or it was something the pony was doing, so he was about to speak up when he noticed that the papers that Metal Master had given him still lay on his bed. The papers distracted him long enough that his mind surged on the headache and the question he planned to ask was forgotten.

After spending a few seconds of fighting the headache into submission, he heard Golden speak up and say, “You alright there Bell?”

Bell shook the worst of the headache away when he heard Golden speak up and looked over at her and said, “Just fighting a headache for a moment.” He then looked back at the tray of food that was before him. While he considered taking into consideration what he thought the other pony had said, he had picked up one of the pieces of toast with a hoof and naturally went to pick up the papers with his magic to look at them.

He had never been good with using telekinesis magic on multiple objects and always preferred using his magic to hold a book over food, so by the time he would’ve had the papers up to his eye-level, he felt a jolt surge through himself.

Bell shrunk his head into his neck and tilted it sideways while squishing his face in pain. His entire body spasmed from the jolt and it shook the entire bed, along with the tray of food, which resulted in some of the coffee from the cup shaking and spilling out onto the tray.

Bell’s mouth shot open as small gasps of air slowly came out of him before he finally started to breathe shakenly.

He slowly started to recover his head, untilting and unsquishing his face. His headache wasn’t a problem though, it was the feeling of all his magic slowly creeping its way up his spine, through his head and towards his horn where it then slowly dissipated. It felt as if a big blot clot had been pulled from his nose, except it had been his magic through his horn. Nothing happened though.

The initial pain shock still surged through his body and by the time he was able to figure out what had truly happen, Metal Master was right there next to him, standing to the right of him, holding him down again, or up. He was making sure Bell didn’t fall over. Fast at least. Metal had slowly started to lower Bell’s head onto the bed.

Metal was then quickly joined by another pony, a unicorn that Bell hadn’t seen yet and as the new unicorn situated themselves before him, he felt some magic wash over him. He wasn’t sure what it was though.

While the unicorn finished up whatever spell they were using, Metal just looked at Bell with a bored face, while the unicorn looked over Bell with slight concern as they finished their spell. Bell himself saw the two now staring at him with their looks and took a deep breath and smiled at them.

“I did it again, didn't I?” He said as he slowly dug his head into the sheets, trying to hide from their stares when their expressions didn’t change.

One of the ponies answered but Bell couldn’t hear them as whatever they said was all washed out. He didn’t know if whatever they were saying was important, so he just shook his head to the best of his ability and answered, “No.” through the sheets.

After hearing the washed out sounds of voices slowly dry out, he finally heard, “-ikly just shock from the pain.”

“Like I said, I did it again…” Bell whispered.

As Bell spoke, he slowly started to feel his strength come back and he slowly sat up and looked at the two ponies staring at him.

“Listen, Bell,” the unicorn said as they saw Bell come to, he didn’t waste any time to get to the point, “We normally try to give unicorns a chance, since most don’t like this option, but a second time in one day is to many, we can only worry so many times. We need you to get better.”

Bell watched as the unicorn turned away and looked at something that was on the ground and used some magic to levitate up a small device before they turned back to Bell and said, “It’s only for your help while you’re here at the hospital.”

Bell saw as the object was brought over to him and landed beside him on the bed and the unicorn pointed at the object with their hoof, “Do you know what that device is?” It was a ring-like object.

Bell knew what the device was when he first saw it, but tried to deny it for a moment, as he only ever viewed them as things prisoners received, but he could only slowly nod his head in reply while looking down at the device now.

The unicorn saw his look and added, “I just want you to know, it won’t be stuck on you. You can remove it whenever you want, but- And a big but- It’s for your own good, so we do recommend you keep it on. Like I said, we don’t like to use them.” The unicorn then gently poked the device with their hoof so it got closer to Bell, “It’s easy to put on, just slide it down your horn until it feels secure. We let the patients do it- We just think it’s, ehhh, better for you too.”

Bell’s lip quivered a bit, he didn’t seem that interested in the idea but something nudged the back of his head, his headache it seemed like, and it made him almost reach for the object with magic again, but he quickly halted that idea after realizing what kind of a mistake it would bring. Bell looked up at the unicorn and quickly made sure they hadn’t caught onto what he had almost done before looking back at the device and said, “Ok…”

Slowly, Bell reached out to the device with both his hooves and picked the device up. It was a magic suppression ring and it would limit his ability to use magic, entirely. He knew that it couldn’t stop powerful spells, but unicorns that could power through the suppression were too far and few between to be a worry. Bell also hadn’t been that powerful of a unicorn in the first place anyways, not now or ever now though.

He fumbled with the device a little bit with both hooves before he gave the unicorn before him a weak smile before he lifted the ring up and slowly slid it down his horn. It was the first time he felt his horn since everything happened. It hurt slightly when he finally put it on, not from the magic suppression, but just touching the horn. If it hadn’t been for his headache and the recent pain from trying to use magic a moment ago, it seemed like it would’ve hurt even more, but after a moment, he finally pulled the ring tightly down his horn and brought his hooves back down and looked down at them.

It was weird though, he had trouble at first trying to slide it down as he was looking for the end, but it dwelled on Bell that it was gone, at least he thought it was. He couldn’t see his horn. Anymore.

The next pony to speak was Metal, they had removed their hooves off of Bell awhile ago, as he had now turned and trotted past the unicorn saying, “If he’s alright then, I’ll leave him to you now.”

The unicorn gave a single nod and said, “Alright. I’ll be checking on a few others while I’m here as well.” The unicorn then brought their attention back to Bell, who had looked up when the small exchange happened, “Well, besides your magic outbursts, you seem to be doing fine.” The unicorn then smiled and said, “I’m Doctor Pepper Mat. The doctor making sure everypony in this room heals up to the best of their abilities.”

Bell stared at Pepper for a moment while he realized a few things, they could probably answer some of his questions, but a problem came up. He didn’t know what to say to Pepper at the moment. He still felt a bit off from his mistake but he decided to point at the sheets of paper on his bed and said, “What’s wrong with me? I haven’t looked at those yet.”

Doctor Pepper leaned in a bit and looked at the papers that were on the bed, and hmmed to himself before saying, “Ahh- If I remember correctly, your horn was shot off and you were hit with some shrapnel to her back leg which required surgery to remove. I was one of the doctors yesterday to help with that.”

Yesterday? It just dwelled on Bell at that comment that he didn’t actually know how long he had been out so he quickly asked, “Wait- How long- When did I get here?”

“Ahh! Yes.” Pepper said, “Well,” the doctor quickly took the papers into his magic and shuffled through them, quickly skimming what he could, obviously trying to get the answer. He finally pulled the papers down and looked towards the exit of the room and said, “About thirty hours by now I’d say.” Pepper then quickly recognized the papers and put them back on the bed where they had been, “You were quickly driven here by truck with another pony from the hive town you were at, you were unconscious when you arrived, your leg had a quick patch to it to keep bleeding down, and we brought you in to do our stuff, that’s when we did a quick surgery to remove the bit of shrapnel from your leg. The rest of the time was you here in the room resting. I assume the drugs wore off which is why you woke up finally. You were pumped full of them to keep you from waking up for surgery, plus your horn. It’s hard to know how some unicorns react to the pain of losing their horns, even when knocked out.”

Bell just sat there and listened to him. Doctor Pepper had obviously just read the sheets of paper, and they probably had all the answers to the questions he wanted to ask but he wasn’t much for reading in the first place, “So-” He tried to quickly think of the first question to ask, he dwelled on asking about who the other pony was but he decided on asking, “What about earlier then? When I was awake?”

“Earlier? I don’t know, I would say–” Pepper was saying but they were interrupted.

“That was about thirty minutes ago- It was right before Metal went off to make sure lunch was coming.” Golden said from her bed. She quickly pushed her coffee cup up to her lips and took a sip after answering, and once she had her short fill of coffee, she pulled the cup down and smiled at Bell, showing off her coffee-stained lip, which she quickly licked away.

Pepper looked back at Golden and said, “Thank you.” before he turned back to Bell and said, “So thirty minutes ago, as she said.” He then watched Bell for a moment before he looked back towards the clock and added, “So, I know you haven’t been conscious for a while, but I can answer a few more questions before I have to check on some others.”

It took Bell a moment to register what he could ask in the short time he assumed he still had with the doctor and only two important questions came to mind in that moment, “Oh!” he looked a bit frantic as his mind raced between the two on which to ask first. His hoof made the decision and reached down and touched his bed, which also brought his gaze along with it and he asked, “My beds a bit damp- You wouldn’t happen to know why?”

Doctor Pepper looked at the bed and then brought up a hoof and felt part of the sheets and then looked a bit confused for a moment before saying, “It’s probably just from you sweating. Not a problem, though it’s probably not comfortable now that you’re awake.” Pepper dwelled on that thought for a second before saying, “I can ask the ponies that do the laundry if they could change your sheets later today when you all get to go outside for a bit.”

Right when Pepepr finished, Bell took the initiative and asked his next question without hesitation, “And my left ear, it’s all- Wonky? I think? It’s harder to hear stuff from that side.”

The doctor looked up at Bell and curiously watched him before saying, “Well, it’s probably either two things, one, your head’s going to be all ‘wonky’ for a while from losing your horn, or if what the report on the papers say, it’s from the grenade you were near.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the papers again before frowning, “If it’s the latter, then your hearing is– Well, most likely gone in that ear. There’s some creatures who say they get some of it back, but there’s been no research on such topics.” He then gave Bell a half smile and finished his comments off with, “Either way, it’s not something we can help with.”

Bell held his composure for a moment but it slowly broke and he became defeated at the news before simply nodding and whispering, “Oh…”

Pepper pushed his lips together and sighed. He then turned around, picked up his bag that was on the ground with magic and then turned back to Bell and said, “Sorry about the lack of bedside manners, but we see too much to keep up with it. Of everything- So, sorry.” He then turned away and left after realizing Bell wouldn’t be asking anything else, leaving him to his own.

“It’s alright, you still got your right ear, and guess who’s to your right!” Golden blurted out after the doctor had left.

Bell ignored Golden for a moment as he reached up with a hoof and rubbed his left ear, though he didn't know what it would do, the surge of his headache upon touching his head wasn’t what he thought would happen, so he quickly lowered his hoof and waited for the surge to pass before he finally looked at his tray of food and saw that the coffee had spilled a bit from his reaction earlier.

The mess didn’t bother him, it was contained to the tray, but he was hungry so he reached back for the apple jam toast that he had picked up earlier, which had fallen from his hoof, into the small coffee spill and said, “I would like to just eat in quiet Golden.” Bell said.

Golden had been smiling at Bell, but she noticed Bell wasn’t looking anyways so she slowly lost it before replying, “I know, the first meal after waking up is always a weird one, you’ll have more energy afterwards.” After saying that, she didn’t speak up again and left Bell to his thing.

Bell sat for a moment as he held the toast, soaking up the quietness, or what was of it as there were still ponies around the room talking to each other, but at least it wasn’t directed to him, so after waiting a second to long, he finally brought the toast up and took a bite out of it.

The bread melted in his mouth, leaving behind the texture and taste of apple jam, along with a hint of coffee that the bread had soaked up from the spill.

Chapter 4

The meal was fine. It wasn’t anything special. The apple jam toast was the best part, but not filling. Bell didn’t try it with the coffee. He didn’t want to jumpstart his tastebuds with a new type of experiment, so he just ate everything on its own.

Golden had taken their attention away from Bell now and they were chatting away with the pony to their right, which was what Bell wanted anyway. He had spent the time eating and watching the other ponies in the room also eat and chat away.

What kept catching Bell’s attention was another unicorn who was also in a bed on the opposite side of the room, who was eating. What Bell kept looking at was their use of magic while eating. He couldn’t look away from it. His mind kept going back to thinking that he could also do the same, but always immediately remembered he couldn’t anymore. It bothered him, a lot.

Bell finally pried his gaze away from the unicorn and went back to finishing his food. As he finished what remained of his coffee, he reached over to grab his glass of water and took a few sips from it before finally putting it on the tray of food. Now that he had finished, his gaze came back to the papers that he had yet to read, but he was distracted by the other ponies again.

As some of the other ponies in the room had started to finish their meals, they would place their own trays on the tables beside their beds and lay down, others continued to chat with each other, and one pony got up from their bed and hopped onto the ground. They had to slowly though as they did. They had to keep their balance as they got up, holding and leaning against the bed.

Bell finally noticed that the pony he was watching was missing their back left leg and it caused Bell to look away once the non-existent leg registered in his mind. He didn’t want to think about having his own leg missing. At least his wasn’t missing, just messed up badly. Somehow. Bell didn’t know exactly what was wrong with it now that the thought came to him, all he knew was that it hurt, so with curiosity finally catching up to him and everything about the situation finally settling down for him, he once again looked at the papers but this time finally reaching for them and brought them up to himself and looked at them.

There were only four papers, they were in an organized order and neatly stacked after Pepper had looked at them. They were until Bell picked them up. He had trouble picking the papers up with only his hooves so he had only managed to pick one up at a time, since he wasn’t sure how to separate the pages from each other while holding them.

The first page of the document just covered the basic information about him, that he assumed the doctors had been told about, or they had assumed of him.

Now that he looked at the information, some of it seemed like it was wrong, a few spots were empty and the rest was correct. The main question that arose from this page was how the doctors here known about most of it. If it had only been thirty hours or so since that explosion incident, then personal documents wouldn’t have arrived by now in the town. Unless they had been here to begin with.

Or somepony from his force had come with him on that truck to help deliver him.

Wait- What about that other pony Pepper said?

Bell thought about that for a moment. Who had brought him here? It couldn’t have been the platoon leader. They would stay at the hive town to keep everything under control.

There was a moment of silence in his mind as a name came to and he realized something. Sweet Flash.

They had been the pony who yelled out, the other one in the room with him, the one who kicked the grenade away.

Bell’s face drained of color and turned slightly white as he once again thought about what the doctor had said.

Pepper said I was brought here with another pony. And I remember that Sweet had been closer to the grenade than me. That-

Bell stopped his thinking and went back to reading the pages. He hoped he would find a answer about Sweet Flash, but he slowly lost faith at that attempt.

The second page of the papers only went over the injuries Bell received. His horn had somehow been shot off, which was expected to cause him pain for the next week or two, and how the muscle, bones, and tendons near the top of his back right leg were destroyed from shrapnel. The surgery Bell received was successful and that his leg would ‘recover,’ but it was noted that his leg would never fully recover. It didn’t mention anything further about that comment.

Overall, the biggest thing that caught Bell’s attention on the page was the thing about his leg. He hadn’t gotten up from his bed since waking earlier in the day and now that he thought about that, more of Pepper’s words once again came back, which helped take his mind off of Sweet Flash.

The doctor had said that they would be going outside later.

What would be involved with that? Was it going to be a courtyard? Where would it be outside? Were they secretly prisoners?

Bell’s thoughts slowly spiraled out of control at the thought that his current situation seemed more like a prison than anything. It wasn’t like he could leave.

Was he still under the authority of the military? He was still drafted, but they had said this was a ward for ponies being discharged from service? W-

“Are you do- with this sir?”

Bell’s attention was brought back when a pony spoke up. It had been the mare from before that had brought over his meal. They were standing on the left side of his bed, a few feet away from his tray and looking all too happy to be able to awaiting his answer.

Bell stared at the pony before looking at his tray and answered, “Oh! Yes. I’m done. You can take it.” He lowered the papers for a moment and then nudged the tray with a hoof, motioning to them that they could indeed take it.

The pony didn’t take the tray though and stared at it until they cleared their throat and said, “The wa-er. Sir.”

Bell swapped glanced between the mare and the tray for a moment before it clicked in his head what they had meant and he quickly picked up the glass of water he had left on it and put it on the desk next to his bed.

“Thank you.” The mare answered before picking the tray up in their mouth and taking off with it to the center of the room where they organized the coffee cup and tray into two different piles, all while also dumping any crumbs or leftover food into a big bucket. There was another bucket that the mare dumped the coffee into, though nothing came out of Bell’s cup when they went to pour it. It was obvious that it was a habit to just dump anything from the cups out.

Bell watched as the mare did her work and then watched as they went to another pony in the room and asked the same question to them, repeating the process as they started collecting from a few ponies around the room.

“They like to keep a constant line of trays coming in to wash. The kitchen staff get a bit angry when ponies keep them.” Golden spoke up. She had been watching Bell for a while now.

Bell ignored her comment, hoping she hadn’t directed that statement at him. She had done a good job until now with his request of being quiet, but it seems that she stuck to the request of being quiet for as long as he ate and then some. Maybe Bell could ask her to stay quiet for the rest of the day. Bell didn’t want to be distracted from his thoughts now that he was awake. He had to much to think about. Though, maybe she had some answers to some questions he had.

Bell finally broke his gaze from the mare and turned to Golden who quickly gave a quick smile, and asked, “What did that Doctor Pepper mean when he said we’d go outside?”

Golden seemed to perk up a little at his question and quickly cleared their throat and answered, “In about an hour or so, after lunch, they’ll let some of us take a short walk outside. They say it helps with recovering, plus they know some of us hate being here.” She sank down a little and sighed, “Though not everypony can. Some of us are in to bad of shape.” She then took a hoof and pointed it in the direction of a pony on the other side of the room, “Like him. Both of his left legs are broken, so they only let him up when he needs the bathroom.”

Golden then looked back at Bell, “They might not let you out either. It was either Metal or Pepper that I heard say that your leg was bad. You’ll have to wait until a doctor clears you though before they let you go outside.”

“So they kinda just let you go out? And let you walk?” Bell asked with a bewildered look.

“Well- They’ll have a few nurses come with us to make sure we’re good. They normally let us go out to the garden across the road and walk around for a bit before we come back. For this room, they let us do it twice a day- If you can go. They have two rooms go out at a time when that happens, it lets us talk with other ponies.” Golden answered.

“How long do we normally stay here for then?” Bell asked, but he immediately realized it wasn’t a good question and was immediately met with the expected reply.

“That depends on each pony. They say I only have a few more days left before they send me off to Vanhoover.” Golden then got side tracked with her answer and said, “Everypony here gets to go home, but they send us to Vanhoover normally to get some medal for our injuries before putting us on a train and sending us off.”

Bell wondered how she knew all of that but realized it must be common knowledge to happen so he brushed it off and then said, “Oh.”

“Yeah! Yeah. The top brass are a lot more relaxed with us backline folk having this kind of experience ever since we pushed past Vraks. It’s what my lieutenant said at least. Said that General Pinkie Pie somehow convinced Luna to let everypony in Equestria proper to have an easier time because, quote, ‘The bugs wouldn’t be ruining our parties anymore with the recent pushes we’ve made.’” Golden said.

“It would make sense…” Bell said softly, “The changeling hive we were at were peaceful for the month I was stationed there.”

The was a small pause, “Were.” Bell looked down at himself before looking over at Golden and seeing them perk up a bit too much interest into the topic but he quickly answered in a whisper, “I’ll tell you another time.” He then laid himself back down on the bed and said, “I’d just like to sleep again now though. Please.”

He then started to get himself comfortable before it bugged him that he was ending the conversation in a rude way and spoke up again, “I’ll uhh– After y’all return from going outside, I’ll tell you.”

Golden quickly spoke up, “You don’t have to tell Bell! A few ponies have wanted to keep their stuff a secret. I know you think you have to since that’s all we what most of us do, but we don’t pry into it if anypony refuses.”

Bell raised a hoof and waved a bit at her, “Don’t worry about it– I just want some sleep for now. I think Luna visited me during that short nap. Hopefully she does again… It really helped.” Bell then lowered his hoof back down and dug his face into the bed. By now, his bed was no longer damp from all the sweat and it was enjoyable again to lay in, which helped Bell fall asleep as he heard Golden say something. He wasn’t able to catch it though.